


November: Drabble Every Day - 2016 Drabbles

by crossingwinter



Series: Irresponsible Storytelling [15]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 11:24:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 13,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8443999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: I plan to write a drabble every day in the month of November.





	1. Edric Dayne

Edric Dayne had learned young what dreams were.  He’d dreamed of a little sister.  The little sister had died three months after her birth, of the same cough that had killed his mother a few days later.  He’d dreamed of riding through the mountains with his father, learning about how to protect the passes around Starfall.  His father had fallen off a mountain ledge while trying to help a shepherd round up a runaway goat.  He had dreamed of adventure the day that he had ridden out to bring the Mountain to the King’s Justice,  but what adventure he’d dreamed of had not involved Lord Beric dying not once but many times.  

Dreams were dangerous things, Ned had decided.  They’re made to be dashed, not made to be followed.  Better–far better–to live in reality.  For while it might break your heart, it doesn’t give you undue hope.

He’d felt very clever thinking that.  He’d felt a man grown with the thought, though he’s still just a boy.  He hadn’t told it to any of the rest of them as they ride forth, though.  They all tease him for his cracking voice and he’s sure that it’ll crack midsentence and make him sound like some stupid boy nonetheless.

Dreams were dangerous things, and Ned found that his betrayed him all too frequently.  Betrayed and confused–because as the roads grew muddier and the destruction they passed grew more violent, his dreams…well they roiled.

He’d dreamed of girls before.  That had started while they’d still been in King’s Landing.  He’d known he shouldn’t dream of the Prince’s betrothed, but she was very pretty, and her eyes had lit up the moment that Ser Loras Tyrell had handed her that rose.  He’d dreamed of kissing her, of holding her hand, of making her laugh.  He’d dreamed of her smiling at him when he rode back to King’s Landing alongside Lord Beric with the Mountain’s head on a spike to present to her father.  Even after news of Lord Stark’s beheading, that dream had not changed.  In his waking moments, he imagined that Lady Sansa did not smile or glow so much as she did when he slept.  Undoubtedly she mourned her father, for she was dutiful and good, and Lord Stark’s death was a tragedy.  Sometimes he even dreamed that she turned to him and said, “Your name’s Ned too–you must be good like him.”

It was an errant fancy, a harmless one that he could easily distract himself from by day, but sometimes his dreams took him down roads that confused him, and made him awaken with his blood high and his body aching.  In some dreams he was Ser Loras, presenting his beautiful beloved with a rose; in other dreams Ser Loras rode towards him and presented him a rose, and called him his love.  In his waking hours, Edric tried very hard not to think of the way that Ser Loras’ lips curved as he smiled, the way his brown hair curled, the way his eyes danced, the way his dreaming lips tasted.  Those thoughts, those feelings should be for Lady Sansa, not for Ser Loras.  And yet…

Dreams were complicated things.  His dreams of Sansa did not fade, nor did his dreams of Loras.  And however much he protested internally that dreams were dangerous things, and that it was better to live in reality, the more times he saw Lord Beric fall, the more he was glad to have something sweet to sleep to.


	2. Nissa Nissa

Tales are tales, she sees that clearly.  Tales of love, of war, of despair, of heroism the likes of which the world has never–and will never–see.

She loved him.  That much is clear to her.  She’d loved him for years, since they were children together.  He was a smith and she was a shepherdess and their life was always going to be a quiet one.  When they wed, they danced and laughed and smiled and there were uncles and aunts and cousins about them, cheering happily for the world could be a hard place but in this moment it was not.

“Nissa,” he would call to her when he returned from the forge, covered in sweat and soot.  He wouldn’t demand that she move, or join him.  She would be carding, or weaving, or spinning, or maybe just sitting on the ground, rubbing her feet because the little one got away from her today and she’d had to chase it up and down the hills until she was able to grab it and bring it back to the the rest of the flock, grateful for the lazy dog who did his job when she was not around–if not while she was at his side.

“Nissa,” he would say again when he came and found her, would say as he brushed her hair away from her neck so he could kiss it.  “Nissa,” he would moan when inside her, and “Nissa,” he would say when she crawled from bed in the morning an hour or maybe more before he would need to, unwilling for her warmth to leave his side.

Tales are tales, and they speak of great love–will speak of great love.  They’ll speak of a night unending, and  _his_  great sacrifice, his truest love, but what of her?  Will they tell how she fought, how she screamed and begged?  She fights, because there is nothing left for her to do but fight, because that’s what one does when one is desperate, when one has lost those things that brought her joy.  Her flock is dead–they could not survive the cold and the ravaging wolves, those aunts and uncles and cousins who had laughed at their marriage are starving, and her husband’s gentle eyes are dark as he calls to her, “Nissa Nissa.”


	3. Rhaenys Targaryen

“You can take my castle, but you will win only bones and blood and ashes.”

“That’s all she said?”

“All,” Rhaenys says, and Orys sighs, running his hand over his jaw.  There are dark circles under his eyes--he hasn’t slept well since the battle--and she is quite sure that cut on his face will scar.  

“There isn’t time for a seige,” he murmurs, clearly thinking.  “Aegon needs...” his voice trails away, but Rhaenys understands.  In the weeks that she and Orys have been campaigning together, words sometimes have fallen away.  Perhaps it is to be expected.  She doesn’t need words with Aegon, but this is different.  Orys is not her brother.  It is a thought that has hung in her mind more than once.   _If he were not so loyal to Aegon, no doubt he’d have wanted to bed me,_ she muses.   _He may still, though he’ll deny himself to the grave._

Not for the first time, she wonders what he would have made of Argella Durrandon if they had been wed.  Or, more curious to her, what she would have made of him.  The woman was as forceful as the gales in which her father had died.

“I suppose there’s no trickery that will can bring is within the castle’s gates?  A seaside entrance?” he asks.

“I can search for one tomorrow on Meraxes, but I dare not get too close to the castle’s walls.”

“Why tomorrow and not today?”

“Because I am tired, as are you,” Rhaenys answers evenly.  “Because I’m your queen and I will it.”

Orys considers, then shrugs and turns away.  “Storm’s End,” he murmurs.  “And here I thought it would be mine when I defeated Argilac Durrandon.”

“Aegon will give it to you, I don’t doubt.  He wanted you to have it before all this began.”  Orys lets out an amused snort.

“I suppose there’s something to be said for claiming it, but I’d rather hoped not to have to fight.  Least of all when it could have been a sweeter transition to my power.”  Did he still nurse dreams of marrying her?  Ever since Aegon had first mentioned it to him, he’d liked the idea, though he’d never met Argella Durrandon, and knew little and less about her.  Visenya would call Orys a romantic, but surely not even romantics could treasure such hopes through a war such as this.

“You wanted it presented on a silver platter?” Rhaenys laughs.

How she regrets the laughter as the sun sets and a guard comes to find her and Orys as they pour over maps together.

“My lord, your grace,” the boy--he is just a boy--pants.  “Lord Massey is here.  And others.  They’ve brought...” his voice trails away and Rhaenys feels a chill on her neck that has little to do with the sea breeze.  She looks to the castle and sees that the Durrandon crowned stag does not flutter in the wind above the gates.

_What have they done to her?_

What they had done to her makes Rhaenys ill.  There are yellow bruises on her belly and arms and a purple one on her cheek, and if that were the worst of it, she’d have been quite content.  The chains seem so huge on Argella Durrandon’s wrists and ankles, and there is a gag of some sort stuffed between her lips--swollen and split.   _Bone and ashes and blood._

_She fought them at least._

The men are laughing, and some are even cheering as she and Orys approach, but Orys silences them with a raised hand, his eyes determinedly on Argella’s face and not her nakedness.  Argella’s gaze is not on Orys, though.

Her eyes--clear and blue like the sky after a storm--are locked with Rhaenys’, and there is fury there, and pain, and Rhaenys pities her, except that the moment she feels her face soften with pity, an indignant pride swells in those blue eyes, and Rhaenys feels her lips quirk almost approvingly.

There are ways to break a woman like Argella Durrandon, to defeat her, to lay her low.  But this...this is not one of them, and even as Lord Massey bends his knee to Orys and declares the Stormlands for Aegon, and even as Orys sweeps his own cloak from his shoulders and wraps them around Argella’s to cover her from the eyes of the men around them--Rhaenys sees that this...this did not break her.  

And she finds herself glad of that.


	4. Arya x Gendry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [insp.](http://valiantnedspreciouslittlegirl.tumblr.com/post/152731631658/sourcefieldmix-good-idea-marry-a-blacksmith-so)

“you’ll marry me, won’t you?”

she asks it while they’re curled up next to one another, her face nuzzled against his side and when he glances down at her, he sees her grey eyes peeking up at him.  they aren’t nervous, they’re warm, they’re loving, and gendry takes a deep, shaky breath.

“that can’t…be a good idea,” he says slowly, and every word catches hold of his throat as though determined not to leave his lips.

“why not?” she asks, not sitting up.  “and don’t you pull that you’re too lowborn nonsense with me.  you’re knighted and lorded now.  not that i cared about that before.”  she rests her lips against the skin of his side–not quite a kiss. 

he feels a rush of warmth.  she had always cared, after all.  that’s why…why everything, why he’d run after her through the dark, why he’d waited for her, why he was here now.  she’d never faltered in that.

the words continue to claw.  “it can’t be a proper match.  you’re the king’s sister, and you’re his strong right arm.  surely you should wed someone…someone with something to bring.  some alliance or…” he doesn’t want to think of that.  he imagines arya marrying some poncy southron lordling–who looks remarkably like edric dayne, though dayne’s already betrothed–and it’s only the fact that he can’t look away from her grey eyes that keeps his own open.  “i don’t bring anything to you or your house that you don’t already have.”

“except your heart,” arya whispers.

“you already have that,” gendry chokes out.

“and your swords.”

gendry blinks.

“what?”

“well…” arya says and everything about her face is serious except those grey eyes.  those are dancing.  “well, i’m a swordswoman you’ll recall.  and i need swords.  and you can make them.  you can provide me with swords whenever i need them.”

gendry finds himself laughing.  “you’re a stark.  you could buy as many swords as you would like.”

“or i could just get one from you as i need.  i know you make them still, even if you’re a knight and a lord.  i want access to your stash.”

“my stash.”

“of swords.”  her hand begins to toy with the hair of his lower belly, and a wicked grin plays across her lips.  “whenever i like.  you’re very good at swordcraft after all.”

gendry smirks despite himself, and arya asks again, “you’ll marry me, won’t you?” and this time, the words don’t claw their way out of his throat when he says, “yes.”


	5. Arya Stark

She had once thought that the most beautiful thing she could have ever seen was a flickering, dancing candle after days and days of blackness.

She was wrong.

“Bran,” she hears herself whisper as she sees it, truly sees it, not a dream at all. There is a bit of green to the horizon, deep sea green like the waters of the Happy Port on a grey day. “Bran, you did it.”

She opens her lips and lets out a howl, a joyful song and she hears behind her, wolves and men alike seeing what she sees and joining her in song.

The night is ending. They are winning.


	6. Jon, Daenerys & Tyrion

“jesus these are hot.”

“suck it up, snow.  what were you expecting?  they’re hot wings.”

“i didn’t say it was _bad_ , i just said jesus.”

jon thinks he must be browning out.  he’s never browned out before, but this must be what it is, where there are moments where what he sees doesn’t connect with what he saw a second ago.  a second ago, he was standing, now he’s sitting.  a second ago, tyrion was climbing onto the barstool across the table from him, now he’s sitting and is already gnawing at the bones of a one of the hot wings that dany had brought back.

jon’s sure that he looks the way tyrion does–cheeks flushed, eyes blown, hair mussed, sweaty, five o’clock shadow coming in strong.  dany, however, looks quite as flawless as she had when they’d started drinking…five six hours ago? her hair remains in its long braid, she’s balanced perfectly on her high heels.  the only difference is a flush creeping up her neckline, across her cheeks, and some slight red to the veins in her eyes.

“you can hold your liquor,” jon hears himself saying to her, and she smiles at him.

“nah,” she says.  “i just took fewer shots than you idiots.”

“cheater,” tyrion says through his chicken.

“i’m a sad drunk.  you don’t want to be around me when i’m blitzed.  no one wants to be around me when i’m blitzed.”

“i always want to be around you,” jon says, licking sauce off his fingers.  he’d gone from holding a piece of chicken to eating it, but had somehow missed the transition.

dany gives him a smile.  “eat up.”  she pushes a basket of fries towards them.

“bless you you got fries,” tyrion says grabbing a handful and shoving them into his mouth all in one go.  

“i also got you water,” dany says, pointing to the cups on the table.

“so you did!” jon says happily reaching for his.

“what kind of momfriend would i be if i didn’t look after you two drunks.”

“dunno, but we didn’t have mothers so it’s not like we have anything to compare you with,” jon says, water dripping out of his mouth as he does.

“i killed my mother,” tyrion sighs sadly and eats more fries.

“you did not,” dany says firmly.  “no more than i did.  and fuck your dad for putting that idea in your head.”

“fuck my dad,” tyrion says raising his glass of water.  “and fuck yours too,” he adds for good measure.  “and,” he turns to jon considering.  “fuck your real dad but not your fake dad?”

“my fake dad lied to me my whole life,” jon says and he’s sure it’s because he’s drunk it has to be because he’s drunk, “that still fucking hurt.”

“then fuck your fake dad too.”

“fuck my fake dad too.”  jon drinks some water and thinks about his father–about ned stark.  “he loved me,” jon thinks, or he thinks he thinks.  maybe he thinks it aloud.  “and protected me, and took care of me, but it still hurts.”  he takes a sip of water.  water can’t dribble up on your face when your drunk can it?  no.  no he’s crying.

goddamnit he’s not fourteen anymore.

“hey,” dany says.  “you’re not alone.  you’ve got us.”

he gives her a weepy smile.

“it ain’t life if it doesn’t suck,” tyrion adds.  “here, eat a hot wing.  that’ll take some of the sting off.”

jon really wants more vodka but dany hasn’t brought any over to the table, so he settles for a hot wing.  it does take some of the sting off as he coughs on the spice.

“thanks,” he mumbles, not looking at either of them.

“if you,” tyrion says, and jon catches a glimpse of his hand gesturing at dany, “are the momfriend, am i the drunkle?  or the drad?”

“drad?”

“drunk dad.”

dany considers.  “not sure.  because i mom you, because jesus you need good moming.  and a new dad.  so i don’t know if you _can_  be my drad, but drunkles are very not-emotional figures.  you know?”

“drother then?  drunk brother?”

“i guess that’ll have to work.  and jon’s just the dron.”

jon blinks at them both, and they say together “drunk son.”

and he finds himself laughing.  it’s been ages–not since before robb died–that he really felt this at ease with anyone.  “thanks drom and…are you my drunkle then?”

“these are all titles, not actual familial relationships,” tyrion says.  “dany is the drunk mom friend and i’m her drunk brother and you’re our drunk son.  but i guess from your side,” he cocks his head and looks between them.  “drunk older-sister-younger-brother….even though you’re not anywhere like _my_  older sister and yes you’re younger than him.  and i think i’m your drunk dad.”

jon’s head is spinning and it’s not just the alcohol in his system this time.  he takes a sip of water, grabs some fries, and chews as the three of them fall into a drunken, amiable, familial silence.


	7. The Mormont Sisters

“cubs! cubs! cubs! cubs! cubs!”

“lyanna will you be quiet?”

“cubs! cubs! cubs! ow!”

“ _lyra!”_

“she won’t shut up and i want to be at my maximal energy for the game!”

“do you plan to elbow every single person you see today?” alysane demands from the front seat.  

“no.  just lyanna if she won’t stay quiet for one more second,” grousts lyra.  

“cubs!” lyanna insists one more time and jorelle grabs hold of lyra’s arms.

dacey’s phone rings and she picks it up through the car console.  “hi mom.”

“you almost here?”

“the traffic’s horrific.”

“you used spothero, right?”

“no, mom, i’ve never driven in chicago before,” dacey says dryly.

“well, when you get here, give me a buzz.  i really should have given you the tickets yesterday.”

“well if it’s any consolation we didn’t think of it either,” alysane says.

“see you soon.   _stop_  that tormund,” and the call ends.

“he goosed her didn’t he,” jorelle asks.  her head’s tilted back and her eyes are closed.  

“probably,” alysane says.  

“cubs!”

“lyanna, i know you’re excited, but please be quiet for just a second,” dacey says as the light ahead turns red again.  “balls.”

“tormund’s rubbing off on you,” lyra comments.

“har!” lyanna adds, teasingly, and dacey rolls her eyes.

“look, i know he’s not mom’s usual type–” she begins.

“no,” lyra interrupts, “he’s exactly her usual type.  cubs fan.  bears fan.  beardy.  looks dumb but isn’t.”

“just be nice, ok?  she’s happy.”

“i’m perfectly nice!” lyra protests.  “i just don’t see why he has to be at the game with us.”

“he’s a cubs fan too, lyra,” alysane says.

“so?”

“and who else was going to take jorah’s ticket?”

that shut her up.  it had used to be that they all went to games with jorah, before he got in trouble with the law and had fled the country.  since then they’d rotated the ticket through whoever seemed worthy–friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, but for game seven of the world series…

“do you think he’s watching?” lyanna asks.  she barely remembers him.  she’d last seen him when she was still so small.

“i don’t doubt it,” dacey says and she pulls through the intersection and turns the car into the garage.  

“ok,” lyra say, “now you can let it out of your system.”

“cubs! cubs! cubs! cubs! cubs!” lyanna sings gleefully as dacey finds their parking spot and they all get out of the car to make their way towards wrigley.


	8. Ned x Catelyn

Catelyn stumbles from her bed in the middle of the night at the sound of the sobs.  “Robb,” she mumbles to herself.

Her son does not like to sleep.  Nor does he seem to particularly like Old Nan’s attempts to sooth him.  He misses his old nurse, the one from Riverrun, though the gods only know he won’t remember her in a few months.

Catelyn has been in Winterfell for only a week, and she is not yet recovered from the road.  Every night, twice a night if not more, Robb awakens and screams in the night, screams so loudly that Catelyn can hear him even through the thick stone walls with their hot water pumping through them.

She pushes open the door to his nursery, intends to sweep him up into her arms, but she finds that she cannot.  Ned is already there, walking their son up and down the room while Robb weeps, the wetnurse he’d employed to feed his bastard still curled up on her palate on the floor, her pillow over her ears.

“Oh,” Catelyn hears herself say as Ned reaches the wall and turns around.  He stops in his tracks.  

“My lady,” he says, flushing slightly.  “I didn’t mean to wake him.”

“You woke him?” Catelyn asks.  Ned’s room is farther from the nursery than her own, and as far as she’s seen he has not been awakened by Robb’s midnight wailings before.  

“I couldn’t sleep,” Ned says and Robb howls in his ear.  Catelyn crosses the room quickly and Ned hands her the screaming boy.

“Hush my love,” she whispers to him, bouncing him slightly.  “Hush hush.”

Robb hiccups and his sobs drop in volume.  Across the room, Catelyn hears a shifting sound from the other crib and Ned glances over to the bastard.

“Does he always cry at night?” Ned asks quietly, looking back at Robb.

Cat sighs, and Ned manages a smile.  “Jon did at first on the road.  But he stopped after a while…” his voice trails away as if he can see Catelyn’s frustration that he even brought up the boy.  “I’d thought walking him would soothe him.”

“It does sometimes,” Catelyn says.  “But he does not know you well, my lord.”

 _He knows you less well than your bastard,_ she thinks, her exhausted mind unforgiving.  Ned does look uncomfortable at that.  He reaches out a hand and rests it on the top of Robb’s head, stroking her boy’s russet curls.  

“He will,” Ned says seriously, promising her.  “He’ll know me very well, and I’ll know him.”

The babe in the corner makes another fussing sound, and she sees Ned wanting to look to him, but not doing so.   _He’ll love that boy too,_ she thinks.   _He’ll love him to ruins because he already does._ Catelyn knew her histories and knew well the trouble that bastards could cause, not least ones who knew their father’s love.

Robb was settling in her arms, and she was not looking away from Ned.  He looked so serious, and she did not doubt his words.  He would love Robb, he would.  

Catelyn bit her lip, then looked at the cradle in the corner.   _He’ll love that boy to ruins,_ she thought again, and the way was clear, suddenly.

She couldn’t love the boy.  She wasn’t even sure she could like him.  But Robb could, and if he loved Robb, that love could halt a bastard’s jealousy, perhaps.  So she crossed the room, and settled Robb down in the cradle beside him.  Robb looked at his–his half-brother for a moment, and then sat down next to him, and the bastard’s eyes were on him warily as well.

“Mayhaps he’ll sleep better when he shares his cradle,” Catelyn mused aloud.  “He always was more content when he slept beside me.”

She caresses Robb’s cheek and glances over her shoulder at Ned.  

“I hope so, my lady,” he says carefully, but there’s a rush of gratitude in his eyes as he crosses the room to look down at them.  “I would have them love one another.”

Catelyn does her best to suppress the worry in her gut as she looks down at Robb, lying now besides the dark-haired boy.  “I would as well,” she says quietly and she turns away, crossing the room quickly.

“Catelyn,” Ned calls after her, and she turns and he stands there in the darkness, and part of her wants to cry–she is tired, and confused, and still aching from the mere presence of the bastard–and part of her wants to reach out and take his hand because the look on his face is, well, sweet.


	9. Oberyn Martell

you ache.  you burn.  you do not know how the world can go on.

you are reminded to eat, to drink, to think, to breathe, but you are numb.  

they call it the prince’s pass, and you are a prince.  it is not your pass.  the pass of past princes.  perhaps you are the past.  perhaps that is what this is.  transitioning from presence and future to past.

you move because you are reminded to.  you go because you are ordered to.  home.  the word fits oddly in your mind.  can it be home without her?

it has been, you remind yourself.  it’s been years since she left.  she has gone from girl to woman to mother, but those aren’t she, those are what they say she is.  she is elia.  was.  was elia.

you think about language.  you think about fighting.  you think about words and poisons an how the world is at your feet, you could go wherever you like, be whomever  you like.  all that is gone now.  gone and whithered and dead, because someone killed elia and it wasn’t supposed to go that way.  she was supposed to be safe. she, of all of them, was to be safe.

you hate. you weep. you swallow a dry throat.  you want someone, anyone, to hold you, but won’t let anyone near you.  you are alone–and not.  you have your daughters, and niece, and brother and mother still.  far away.

far away and in a dream.  for now, they are dreams, and with them, dreams of elia.


	10. Sandor Clegane

It’s a strange thing, to see the divine.

For all the Elder Brother spoke of it, of the faces of the Seven, they aren’t half so divine as the sight of her, sitting on the back of her horse in winter furs.

She is older now, and her face is harder. There is an unyieldingness to her eyes that make Brother Sandor stop and wonder for a moment if it truly can be her, if she could possibly be the same girl he’d–

_Honesty in everything, Brother Sandor._

_I’m no liar. Never have been._

–held a knife to the throat of.

Twice.

 _She should scorn me._ He scorns himself.

She did live though.  She had survived the den of lions, even if he had not been there to protect her, even if they had wed her to the imp, even if… but he stops himself.  He need not think on that.  He is a new man, reborn on the banks of the Trident, given time to pay the penance for his sins, and his sins are many.

And there she is, his divine, his sainted Sansa, and she does not see him.  She should not see him.  He dreads her gaze as much as he would have it.  He fears his failings voiced upon his lips.

So he does not approach her.  He does not say her name.  He will, he knows, but not just yet.  For a moment, a simple moment, he simply watches her, remembers his sins, remembers his dreams.


	11. Sansa x Mya

"It's cool—that your dad's ok with your being a dyke."  Mya's standing very close, and Alayne's throat is very dry.  She's got such bright blue eyes, and Alayne's gaze drops, but that's not safe because they drop to Mya's lips, to her collarbones, to her—god **—** her breasts.  

"It's not," Alayne breathes, looking away.  "It's—I'm bi," she protests.  She remembers Loras' smile, after all, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was just a girl, and it was before college, before Mya, standing there with her short hair and her  _fuck the patriarchy_ tattoo and her bright blue eyes.

Alayne has blue eyes too, even if Mya can't see them, only the green pigment her contacts show the world.   _Maybe Sansa's bisexual,_ she muses as if from far away,  _and Alayne's a lesbian, Alayne's a_ dyke.  Mya loves that word.  Mya loves the classic old school butch mentality and Mya's standing very close—closer than Sansa is used to, closer than  _anyone_ _'s_ stood to Alayne.  "And I'm not even bi, really," Alayne says, scrambling, her heart hammering in her throat, because this is dangerous, so dangerous, and Mya must think she's some foolish little idiot.  "I'm not really attracted to anyone, really.  If I were, there'd be girls there, but—"

And Mya's lips are on hers and it's as if all air has left the room, as if the whole world around her has stilled and Sansa's mind is blissfuly empty because there's no space for anything except the taste of Mya's lips and the tingle on her skin where Mya's hands find her hips.

When they pull apart, Mya's still got that little smirk on her lips, and there's a new kind of sparkle to her eyes, and the blue goes so nicely with the flush creeping up her cheeks, and Sansa doesn't even  _need_ to think as she practically throws herself at her and their lips connect again.


	12. Arya x Gendry

They meet at a protest.  They meet through a friend of Arya's uncle, because somehow his call to people to join him in the morning downtown made it to her Facebook feed, and she's still new enough to town that what else is she going to do?  She met Yoren once like ten years ago, but if there's anything that brings almost strangers together it's bigotry.

He's much taller than she is, and there's power in his blue eyes, as he throws the hood of his black hoodie over his head as if daring anyone looking at him to challenge him.  He offers her gum, telling her it'll keep her voice from drying out if she plans on shouting which she does, so she accepts even though she doesn't usually chew gum.  He's big, and biracial, and the sheer anger rolling off him is part of what makes Arya like him so much.  She's angry too.  Angry and wants to do something, and that's enough to get her heart rate up as they move together towards the park.

They link arms so as not to get dragged apart in the throng of people, some of Yoren's other friends at their sides as well.  Gendry's voice booms like rolling thunder from his throat, and Arya shouts as loud as she can, doing her best to match his volume.  They shout together.  His life matters, her body her choice, that all are welcome, and when those around them fall silent, and Arya starts a new chant, Gendry is right beside her, taking up the call, magnifying her voice until hundreds are shouting with her, howling like wolves who refuse to be afraid.

 


	13. Arya x Aegon

arya awakens to blue _everywhere._

“god fucking dammit, aegon,” she mutters to herself.

he has a tendency to toss and turn in his sleep.  she’s used to that.  what she’s not used to is the bright blue that’s _all_  over the bedsheets.  he’d wrapped his hair in a black t-shirt before going to sleep the night before.  “the dye gets everywhere,” he’d told her as an explanation before pulling her to his chest and kissing the top of her head.

“why do you do it?” she asks.  they’ve been dating for six months, and it had been between when he’d dyed it last and when it had faded enough to not get everywhere that they’d started sleeping together.

“because i’m blessed with the kind of blonde hair that doesn’t need bleaching, so the world is my oyster,” he shrugs.  “because why would i have blonde hair when i could have blue hair?  because…” his voice fades away and his eyes flicker, “because my–my dad dyed his hair for a while too.”  she knows which dad he means, and she pulls him closer to her, frustration at the blue dye–which probably won’t come out of her sheets if she has a guess–dissipating.  she’d never met his dad jon.  they both have jons the other hasn’t met, and arya knows that that pain won’t go away easily once it’s been poked.

“we can bleach the sheets,” aegon says.  “that usually helps,” but arya shakes her head.  “ruins the fabric,” she says.  “i’m…” _i’m not my mother,_ she wants to say, imagining how her mother would sigh at the sight of the blue.  but the words catch in her throat.  she loves her mother too much for that, and misses her more than anything even if she knows she’d roll her eyes at the sheets and the blue-haired boy in them.  “i like the color,” she says at last.  “we’ll see what happens.”

“you sure?” aegon asks, his eyes searching hers, and she presses a closemouthed kiss to his lips.

“sure.”


	14. Jeyne Poole

_jeyne.  jeyne?_

_now is not the time for fear._

old nan used to say that fear was for the winter, when she told stories to them all before crackling fires.  fear was for the darkness, darkness so heavy it made you weak.  jeyne couldn’t remember that darkness.  she was a summer child, and summer nights in the north were rarely dark for very long.

 _be brave.  you must be brave._ she tries to tell herself that, but she’s frightened.  _what if he finds me again, what if they take me back to him, what if they take me back to_ it _._ she remembers the sting of the lash on her back, the taste of her own tears, the blood on her tongue from biting the inside of her cheek to keep from weeping.  

how she hates the barking of dogs.

jeyne poole is not a brave girl.  she never has been.  she’s always been afraid, but her girlhood fears have no place in the winter.  sansa had been braver than she was, and even this would have made sansa frightened.   _you must be brave._ theon had told her.  she hears it in the wind, too, she thinks.  sometimes.   _be brave._

arya,they call her.  lady arya,or even  _princess._ jeyne is not a princess.  she is a a girl, and a jumpy one at that.  they whisper about her–how  _unfortunate_  it is, what happened to her.  how ned would turn over in his grave to see his daughter treated thusly.  how she’s lucky–a glance cast at theon–that worse didn’t befall her.  

_worse?_

she doesn’t want to think of worse.  she’d rather be dead than think of worse, dead like the  _real_  arya.  is there bravery in that?

at night, she huddles under her blankets.  at night, she closes her eyes, and tries to make her mind go blank, tries to remember her father’s face, her mother’s smile, the sound of the giggles she’d shared with sansa, the taste of lemon cakes. those are the things that made her her, once.  better that than not.  so long as she has those memories she’s–

_jeyne? jeyne._


	15. Elaena Targaryen

“the pretender is dead.”

pretender, they call him.  pretender, as though elaena had not held him in her arms only days after he was born, as though she had not rocked him to sleep, as though she had not dreamed of freedom alongside his mother.

daeron doesn’t do anything.  he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t look at her, but she’s glad of that.  she doesn’t know if she could look at him right now.

how strange it is that when they were at war, she could be enraged at him.  she could plot alongside her cousin, she could call her nephew  _the pretender_ , and know what it meant.  but now that it’s over, now that he’s dead, all she can think of is that little boy who had run through the halls of the keep, who had smiled at her when she gave him sweets and whom she’d had to make sure respected his maesters for they would make him a better lord and man than his father.

“and his sons?” daeron asks at last.

elaena remembers them, remembers daemon bringing them to her and saying,  _“this is your great aunt, you must lover her and respect her as much as i do.”_

“the twins are dead.”   _they were only twelve.  just boys.  and daemon…i thnk him a boy though he is not._

_if only he had listened to me._

“but the others survive?”

“they were not at the battle. i believe bittersteel has them in exile.”

daeron nods, and elaena turns away, goes to the window.

they are standing in a tower, and the courtyard spreads below her, and she sees the maidenvault from the corner of her eye.  she hears the sounds of boys training in the yard, and closes her eyes for a moment and imagines the voices of her sisters.   _must i outlive them all?_ she wonders.  

daeron remains her.  and michael.  and her own children, and daeron’s.  she must remember them.  and when she turns away from the window, the messenger is gone, and daeron is sitting and staring at his own hands as if he sees blood there.


	16. Doreah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rape/csa/abuse mentions

_it’s how to survive.  even queens._

doreah had not thought those words in years, not since she’d been a girl even younger than the khaleesi.   _smile.  it’s how you survive._

had it been her mother who had told her that?  or had it been the madam?  doreah could not remember.  some nights, she hears it in her mother’s voice, clear as a bell, whispering it to her as she holds her, too young to know any better.   _smile.  it’s how you survive._ some nights, it’s the madam’s voice as she watches, as she learns.   _it’s how to survive.  even queens._

the khaleesi doesn’t smile.  or at least, she has not learned to smile.  her lips smile, but everything comes from the eyes.  you must learn to love from the eyes, learn to give joy from the eyes, smile from the eyes, for if you see the world the way they wish you to, what else can there be but joy?  

the khaleesi cries when she thinks no one can see.  she presses her face into her pillow at night and weeps.  she does not like this, she would rather die than this, and doreah remembers the same.   _you grow used to it._ had that been her mother?  had that been the madam?  she will not tell it to the khaleesi.  because even after years of it, doreah’s not sure that it’s true.

 _if you smile, you may believe your own smile.  that makes it easier,_ doreah thinks one evening.   _if you can believe your own happiness, that makes it hurt less.  or does it make it hurt more?_ she does not examine the thought.

when the khaleesi asks about dragons, doreah tells her what she knows.  

when the khaleesi asks about love, doreah tries to leave her hope in tact while telling her what she must to survive.


	17. Wylla

wylla has four daughters, but her breasts have known six babes.

she’s not wed.  she’d never wanted to wed, or rather, the man she would have wed could never wed her.  daynes of starfall have blood as old as memory, and lord addam was a proud man.  a proud man, at least, when it had come to matters of his name and his house.  he had been less proud in bed.  he’d laughed with her, and sighed with her, and put five children in her when he only put one in the wife his mother found for him.

it made no matter.  little edric is a sweet boy, and her youngest daughter lorene is of an age with him, and they were as close as kin could be.  edric does not know that they are kin.  his father had been too proud to tell him, and after addam had died, wylla hadn’t had the heart.  her girls all know, perhaps one day one of them would tell.  she trusts her girls with secrets.  they are sweet things, girls and secrets both.

dorra wants little more than to sail the seas.  she has an itch to know the world, to explore and it had not been long after she had flowered that she took a horse from her father and left.  she had learned to read and write on her own, and sends letters back to starfall, but wylla cannot read and so she has to trust the maester when he tells her that dorra was in pentos, in volantis, in the summer isles, that she captains her own ship now and had collected silks to bring home for her mother to wear one day.

ellin had two babes of her own now, and wouldn’t name the father.  wylla smiles at that.  she knows that well enough.

and jeyne–sweet little jeyne–jeyne was born in war and blood, and had slept alongside a boy who wasn’t her brother.  if lorene and edric had shared her breast at a time, and had come to be as dear to one another as they had been, jeyne had never known the boy his uncle had named jon.  wylla knows edric, trusts him to be a good man, perhaps less stern than his father.  but of jon, she only has memories of holding jeyne and jon to her breast while she followed ned stark west, back to starfall, and wondering what sort of man he would become, and how the world had come to be this way.

 


	18. Lyanna Stark

“leave your mother be, child.  she’s resting,” nan calls after her, but lya doesn’t listen.  (ned will say lya never listens, never does as she’s told.  but brandon doesn’t either, so lya doesn’t feel too bad.)  

she pushes open the door to her mother’s bedchamber and clambers up onto the bed next to her.

“is that my lyanna,” her mother murmurs, and lyanna scoots towards her across the top of her furs.

“has she come yet?” lya demands, though the answer is a very clear no.  her mother is still swollen with her unborn sister. (ned says it might not be a girl, but it’s only fair that it is.  two boys then two girls, and her little sister can be like ned the way she is like brandon.)  

“not just yet,” her mother says.  mother has dark circles under her eyes, and her lips are chapped.  “soon though,” she promises.

“i can’t wait,” lya says, and she presses a kiss to the lump on her mother’s belly.  “i will love you very much, little sister,” she tells it, and lyarra stark laughs and reaches up to run a hand through lya’s hair.

“and she will love you too,” her mother promises.  “of that i’m sure.  you’ll have be her protector.”

“so will brandon and ned,” lya says.  (brandon has always protected her, after all.  and ned has tried to, even if he cares too much about rules.)

“i know, but brothers aren’t sisters,” lyarra says.  “you must be as good a sister as i was to my sister when she was in winterfell.”

“you have a sister?” lya’s sure she would have known that.  she’s sure of it.  she doesn’t remember ever having heard of it.  she hasn’t seen her around.  “did she die?” she asks, her voice sad.  she doesn’t want her aunt to be dead.

her mother only laughs.  “dead?  no, sweetling, she’s married.  far away in the stormlands, but when we were little we were as dear to one another as it’s possible to be.  branda she’s named.  i named brandon after her.”

lya’s heart swelled.  “branda! brandon for branda! she must be wonderful!” 

mother smiles and lya cuddles into her.  “she is.  i love her dearly.”

“and i will love my sister just as dearly,” lya promises again.  “you hear that?” she says to the lump.  “i will love you more than anyone else.”


	19. Queenie Goldstein

“you have two minutes,” tina says.

“i know, i know honey,” queenie replies easily.  “i can see the clock.”  it’s a special clock that tracks when the sun will set, and she has an hour and two minutes to finish cooking.

when she’d been a little girl–and especially at ilvermorny, queenie had never really understood shabbos.  her mom cared, and her dad, but it had always felt silly in a world with magic to just  _stop_  once a week for twenty five hours.  

but she’s older now, and there was something about shabbas dinner that always calmed her down–her and tina and candles, and tonight–tonight jake and newt are here, and they are both rocking back and forth, unsure of what exactly shabbos is, and unsure if they should be doing anything.  she waves her wand and the challah finishes.  she waves her wand and vegetables and meat drop their way into the pot that will keep them at a steady heat to cook until tomorrow.  she waves her wand and the two candles on the table light and she turns to tina and smiles before placing her wand on the shelf above the stove for the rest of the evening.

she and tina murmur a quiet prayer, and newt and jake play with pickett, who seems to have found a fly in the parlor before tina beckons them over for food.  queenie smiles as she rips them each a piece of bread, and reminds herself  _not_  to legilimens jake to get his professional opinion on her challah because it’s shabbos and she doesn’t do that on shabbos.  


	20. Branda Stark

for the first time in nearly ten years, branda receives a letter from winterfell.

_my dear cousin, i’m writing to inform you that my daughter lyanna has been betrothed to your lord robert baratheon.  the match is in part the design of my son eddard, lord robert’s dear friend.  lyanna takes to your sister, and when the time comes for her to be wed may need some guidance in accostoming herself to the ways of the south.  perhaps you would be so kind as to visit upon the occassion of her wedding some years hence, or if the journey to winterfell is too long, when she takes up residence in storm’s end. rickard._

the last time rickard had written her was after lyarra had died.  his letter had been just as brusque.  her cousin had never had a way with words, but between when she’d wed harrold and come south and when lyarra had died something had changed, and branda did not know what.  her sister’s letters had become more withdrawn, and rickard had stopped writing altogether.  

harry had told her it was nothing to worry about, that distance and time make letters scarce, that lyarra had children of her own to care for, three little boys and a girl, who apparently took to her.

branda had three sons of her own, but no daughters. rodrik, ryam, and steffon, all growing to be fine men, laughing and serious both at once.  they were happy, she thought.  her husband and sons and herself.  she’d told lyarra as much before lyarra had died.   _you needn’t worry of me so far from home.  at last i feel as though the walls of this castle are as familiar to me as winterfell.  indeed i find sometimes i cannot recall what home even looked like._ lyarra’s response had been about her fourth pregnancy, about her hopes for a second girl who would be a branda to lyarra’s lyanna.  

for a moment, her heart swells.  the idea of lyarra’s girl so close made her happy.  any taste of her sister was better than the emptiness she’d felt since learning of lyarra’s death.  but she reads rickard’s letter again, and as she does so, the swelling recedes.   _lyarra would not have been happy here,_ she thinks.  lyarra would not have made a new home outside of winterfell.  she would have mourned the loss of it, for lyarra was more stubborn than ever branda had been.   _and lyarra was unhappy married as well._

that’s the thought that stings.  neither lyarra nor rickard never said as much, and branda did her best not to dwell on it, but that much was plain to her as she thought back on what she had sensed over the years.  lyarra biting her tongue even in letters, as though she feared her husband might read them before sending them off.  rickard being more distant than ever, as though he knew–for he must have known–that branda’s heart would always be lyarra’s before his, even if they’d all played together as children…

_lyanna takes to your sister…_

_then i’d not have her miserable._

so branda goes to the writing desk in harry’s solar and picks up a pen, but as she settles down to write to the girl, who can only be fourteen now, she finds she quite doesn’t know what to say.


	21. Val

“val i think i’m in love.”

it’s a simple sentence, and it sends a chill up val’s spine.

it’s always been the two of them–val and dalla, dalla and val.  val following toddling dalla around the village, making sure she doesn’t trip and fall, and dalla taking val’s hand whenever val’s eyes narrow at someone treating her as only a pretty face.  val loves dalla, and dalla loves val, and for a time–a sweet time–that was all that matters.

 _love is for the summer,_ val thinks.  they are lying on a hillside, and val knows that the sad thing about summer is that summer ends.  val has loved the summer, loved  _in_  the summer.  she’s bedded men in the summer, and hunted in the summer, and laughed with her sister in the summer, but summer will come to a close, because it always does. and perhaps this is the start of it.

val looks at dalla, and dalla looks at val.  dalla shares her heart with everyone, but she’s never given it to anyone.  she’s calm and confident except when it comes to the attentions of men, and there’s a flush on her cheeks as she meets her older sister’s gaze.

“the singer, then?” val asks, and dalla nods.  

“aye, the singer,” she says.  “he has a lovely voice, and the stories he tells…” her voice fades.

“he’s a crow,” val points out.

“he’s not anymore,” dalla says.

“and you believe him?”

“you don’t?”

val doesn’t reply.  she wants to believe him, the singer with the red and black cloak.  his voice is like honey and he’s not hard to look at.  but if anyone’s a liar it’s a singer, and if her sister’s heart is broken by a lying crow…

“don’t be blinded by it,” val tells her seriously.  “don’t forget yourself for him, all right?”

dalla gives her a quick smile and sits up.  “you won’t let me,” she says seriously, and val promises herself that she won’t.  she doesn’t say as much though.  she doesn’t need to.  dalla already knows.


	22. Jon x Daenerys

“snow?” she glances at missandei.  “not stark?”

“he is bastard born, your grace,” supplies the little scribe.  “lord eddard’s last surviving son.  the northerners named him king.”

“but not stark?” she asks, and missandei shakes her head.

she does not understsand it.  if he calls himself king, surely he would legitimize himself.  she looks out of the window.

it is a grey day, and cold, and if she were still a girl she’d wrap herself in her hrakkar.  but they are not in the sea anymore, and lions have a different meaning.   _if i’m the dragon, i must not wear a lion’s mane._ certainly not while the lions still held her father’s castle.  she shivers and adjusts her cloak on her shoulders.  

“and he has landed?”

“aye with some counsellors,” missandei says.  “they bid an audience.”

dany nods, and waits.

in meereen she’d worn her tokar, in the dothraki sea she’d worn her hair in braids.  she does not know what a targaryen returning to westeros should wear.  likely whatever she chooses won’t ease the minds of those who await her.  not after the pretender’s landing.   _i have dragons,_ she thinks.   _i don’t need anything else.  that’s all that a targaryen requires._

fire.  and the blood running through her veins.  that’s all she needs.

the doors open and one of her unsullied announces king jon snow of the north, and he steps through.

he is not what she expects.  his face is long, and serious, and for some reason when she’d heard the name snow, she’d imagined snow colored hair like her own targaryen silver, not the long dark hair that he’s pulled back from his face.  his eyes are dark too, and if she’s wearing as heavy a cloak as they could find for her, he’s wearing only a leather jerkin as though he thinks this winter is warm.  

there’s a stutter in his step for just a moment as he approaches her, and he does not take a knee as others have done.  his eyes remain on her face, but she sees a slight flush rise on his cheeks and her own heart quickens for just a moment.   _no,_ she thinks, almost gently.   _no, i must not._

up close, she sees he is young. younger than she’d expected.   _lord eddard was not so different in age from ser jorah,_ she thinks,  _and if this is his son…_ he is handsome, and far less flamboyant than daario, but he carries himself with an assuredness that makes dany sit up taller, more assured of herself as he says in a low voice, “your grace.”


	23. Sansa Stark

> [*(note that because of Dunk’s actions, the tourney didn’t end properly… hmm.)](http://nobodysuspectsthebutterfly.tumblr.com/post/28846787945/re-reading-the-hedge-knight-for-the-bazillionth)

_- Baratheon -  
 (Lyonel & Joffrey)_

She dreams of golden lions.  Arya says it should be stags, but he’s not like that fat drunk king, he’s gracious and beautiful and so it’s  _lions_.  The  _lion_  of Baratheon sounds better than the stag.  Stags are prey, after all.  How many times has her father hunted venison, and how many times has she dined upon it.  

The wolf dines upon the stag.

That sounds fine and fair, and Sansa clutches her pillow to he and kisses it, pretending it’s Joffrey for just a moment.  He is so beautiful, and she’s to be his queen one day, and she’ll be as good and gracious as Queen Cersei, she knows she will.

She doesn’t know about Ice.  She doesn’t know about her screams.  She doesn’t know that it will end in blood and death and destruction, and that her lion is not her lion at all. All she knows right now is what she dreams.

_\- Tyrell -  
(Leo & Willas)_

_What did it matter about his leg,_ she reminds herself when she wakes in the morning, the secret a talisman in her heart.   _What matters is he’ll want me.  He’ll want_ me.  That’s more than Joffrey ever wanted.  

It makes it easier to smile as she walks through the hallways.  It makes it easier to listen to the queen, or to Joffrey.   _Only a little while longer_ , she thinks.   _I’m to be wed, and to a good man._

 _Someone who’s worthy._ She had not thought of those words, but there they are tickling her mind, calling to her as if from some dark cave.  Her father had promised her someone who was worthy when he’d broken her betrothal to Joffrey.

Margaery said he was worthy, and Margaery was the sister she had wanted, the sister she should have had, and the sister she was going to have when she was wed to Willas.  Surely Margaery wouldn’t lie to her, for sisters don’t lie to other sisters.  

She doesn’t know about the dress, doesn’t suspect.  She does not know that they know, and that Margaery isn’t her sister now, and never shall be.  She does not know that Willas may be gallant, but he’s never to be hers.  All she knows is hope and that’s enough to let her walk the halls of a bloodred keep.

_\- Lannister -  
(Tybolt & Tyrion)_

They have made her a Lannister, and slain her mother and brother.  She was the last Stark, and now she is a Lannister.  They have won the war and there is no hope for Winterfell and joy ever again.  

Her lord…husband is kind.  Or rather, he is not unkind.  Sansa has learned that an absense of unkindness doesn’t mean that a Lannister is truly kind.  But he smiles at her, and seeks to make her smile, and perhaps one day she can come to admire him.

Admire, but never love.  She cannot love a Lannister, not after Robb, and father, and mother.  Her heart aches, and she tries not to think of what her parents or brothers would say to her.

Her father had promised her someone who was worthy, and she’d been given a Lannister.  At least he did his best to shield her from Joffrey, but every time she sees the golden lion on crimson she almost remembers blood on white steps before her vision went dark.

She weeps at night.  Weeps for she’d dreamed of songs and love and marriage and babies like what her mother had had, and all she’d gotten was Lannister Crimson.

She does not know about the plot.  She does not know about the poison.  She does not know that she’ll be whisked away in only a few weeks time.  All she knows right now is despair and misery.

_\- Hardyng -  
(Humphrey & Harrold)_

She does her best not to dream of Harry.  She has learned what comes of dreaming of betrotheds.  She shall wait until she knows him, and knows that they are wed.  Then she shall let herself dream.

Her father plans, and promises.  He smiles as he drinks his arbor gold, and gives her significant glances over certain words.  His eyes speak louder than his words, Alayne has learned that well.   _He does mean it, doesn’t he?_

She wants to have faith in her father, but faith is in poor supply these days.  Instead, she does her best to trust him.  Trust, because she sees his wits, sees the way he spins reality from words, and Alayne marvels at just how he does it and wonders if maybe she might do it too.  One day.  With practice.

She doesn’t kiss her pillow at night and pretend it’s Harry.  She doesn’t mourn brothers and parents Alayne never had.  She doesn’t dream of puppies.  She doesn’t even let herself imagine his face.  He could be as beautiful as Joffrey or as ugly as the Hound and it wouldn’t matter, not truly.  When she closes her eyes and imagins a great castle of strong grey stone, and Harry’s knights at her side as she rides north to throw the Boltons from her father’s seat.

She does not know about the High Septon, doesn’t know about his righteousness, doesn’t know that he’ll require more than just words to undo her marriage.  She doesn’t know about Saffron, and Myranda, or Ser Shadrich.  All she knows is that maybe, just maybe, she’ll be going home.

_\- Targaryen -  
(Valarr & Aegon)_

“You’ll wed him,” he, looking harried.

“I’m already wed,” she reminds him.  The High Septon had not undone her marriage to Lord Tyrion.  She’d been glad of that in the end, so as not to have been saddled with Horrible Harrold, even if it meant that Winterfell…

“I should like to go home,” she says quietly.  “My brother sits in my father’s seat.  I am grateful for your protection, but I am a Stark and should be returned to Winterfell.”  She does her best to keep her bitterness from her voice.  Jon Stark in the end.  Robb legitimized him, because Robb didn’t want her to have the castle.  

“You’ll wed Aegon,” Littlefinger says.  “It doesn’t matter what the High Septon says now, or any of them.  The Faith has been shattered, thanks to our good mad queen.  And Aegon will give you all you want and more.”

 _All I want?_ He was getting vague.  Sansa saw that now.  Vague for his plans were all falling apart, for he’d not planned for two dragons–only one.  “All you want,” Sansa says quietly.  “I want to go to Winterfell.  You could send me with twenty men and I could be there in a month.  No need for marriage, no need for Aegon.  Only a need for you.”

“Alayne,” he begins, but Sansa shakes her head.

“Can you give me what I want?” she asks him evenly, and his green eyes are sharp as they look at her.

“You will wed Aegon.  The matter is decided.”

She doesn’t know about the knight.  There’s no way she can.

\- _She might have prayed then,_  
if she had known a prayer all the way through,   
but there was no time. - 

 _This time for true,_ is all Sansa can think.  There is word that Aegon’s camp is only a day’s ride away, and on the morrow, Sansa’s to be his bride.  She somehow doubts that he will be like her first husband, and heed her wishes not to be bedded.  Perhaps she’ll want to bed him.  She’d once dreamed of being a queen, and now she’s to have it.  Except that like as not her head will end up on a spike just like her father’s.

As if she’d not dreaded it for years.  As if she’d not expected it.

The snow floats around her as she rides.  No wheelhouse can make it through the snows, but Sansa doesn’t mind the cold.  It reminds her that all this is real, even if she feels numb, and dreamy.  She dismounts in the darkness even as Lord Littlefinger’s men set up camp, and she looks around the clearing they’ve settled on.  It’s sheltered by trees, and it’s on the side of a hill.  Somewhere, she remembers someone saying that hills were safer to set up camp on than valleys.  

She walks around, feeling Lord Littlefinger’s eyes upon her.  He is wroth with her, she knows.  Once that would have frightened her, but she can’t be frightened now.  She’s in a cold dream, but instead of green firelight there’s moonglow and snow.  

“Lady Sansa.”  She looks about, wondering if it’s the wind, or the rustle of empty branches.  But it’s a voice, truly a voice and she spots a hooded figure, taller than anyone she’s seen in years.  The figure raises one finger to his lips, and then removes the hood.

Her face is scarred, and Sansa has never seen her before.  Perhaps because she is a woman, Sansa trusts her more and she goes to stand by the tree at the edge of the clearing, leaning against it and looking in.

“Who are you?” she asks without moving her lips.

“I am Brienne of Tarth, my lady, I served your mother Lady Catelyn.  I vowed to her I would find you and return you to her.”

“You cannot do that now,” Sansa says.  Her voice flutters, and her stomach is twisted in knots.  

“No, I cannot,” Lady Brienne says, and Sansa hears rather than sees the pain the words cause her.  “But I can bring you home to Winterfell.  Your brothers are there.  And your sister soon enough.”

“Arya?” Sansa asks sharply.  Her little sister is dead, and then was wed to Ramsay Bolton, and then wasn’t Arya at all, but Jeyne Poole.  It was that that changed him from Father to Littlefinger.

“Yes my lady.  At the head of a pack of wolves.  She had a little sword called Needle.”  But Sansa had never known of a sword called Needle.  It didn’t sound like something Arya would name a sword.  Unless it was a secret of some sort.  Why would Brienne think she knew the sword unless it mattered somehow?  

“A pack of wolves?” Sansa asks instead.

“Headed by her own direwolf,” Brienne says quickly.  “My lady, I speak the truth.  I would not lie to you, though I know that others will say the same.  I…you know my squire, Podrick Payne.”

“Pod?” Sansa says, startled and too loudly.  Littlefinger’s eyes flicker at her and she feigns a cough.

“Aye, my lady.  He entered my service to help me find you.  He has no designs on reward, just your safety.” 

This could be a lie–the cruelest of lies, but Sansa cannot know.  If Lady Brienne were a knight–a true knight…except true knights don’t exist, and Lady Brienne’s a lady, not a knight.  But Sansa wants to believe it, she does.  She wants to believe her mother sent someone for her, that her brothers and sister await her in Winterfell that she can go home at long last.  She thinks of Littlefinger, thinks of Aegon and the marriage bed she does not want.

“I will keep you safe.” She hears the words and this time _–_ this time _–_ Sansa goes.


	24. "Aejonnel Stark"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for jeynegrey

“aegon.”

“you already have a son with that name.”

“i know.  but why can’t i have two?”

“won’t you confuse them?”

“so what if i confuse them?  i want him to be named aegon.”

“look, i know that’s what you want but that’s not how i want it.  if your first son is named aegon, i don’t want  _mine_  to be given that obviously a seond-hand name that his older brother has the same one.  it would be different if you didn’t already have a son named aegon–”

“aegon.”

“that’s what i said?”

“no, you’re mispronouncing it.”

“what?”

“aegon.  say it again.”

“you mean….aejon?”

“better, you’re still a little hard on that ‘g’ it should be somewhere in between.”

“oh for fuck’s sake rhaejar.”

“no, that’s rhaegar.  you had that one right.”

“but aejon?  really?”

“yes.”

“like…jonnel?  there’s a stark somewhere back there named jonnel.”

“no, it’s a ‘g’ not a ‘j’.  a little bit less of that post-alveolar.”

“aejon.”

“aegon.”

“aejonnel.”

“lyanna be serious.”

“you’re the one who wants to name your first son aegon and your second son aejon don’t tell  _me_  to be serious.”

“ae _g_ on.”

“aejonnel.  also he’s a stark he’s taking my last name.”

“that’s not how that works.”

“look there can’t be two aegon targaryens in the same family.  that’s ridiculous.  so aegon targaryen and aejonnel stark.”

“lyanna–”

“i’m the one giving birth to him i call the shots.”


	25. Rhaella Targaryen

one day, between joanna and viserys, rhaella decides it is better not to feel anything at all.  it’s easier that way.  her heart would not have been broken so many times, her girlhood hopes would not have been shattered if she did not feel anything.

it’s an oddly joyous experiment.  how lovely it is not to care about anything when she’s cared so much.  her boy is old enough that his maesters and the master at arms tend to his education.  she need only smile and kiss his forhead before bed and that is easy enough if she feels nothing at all.  it feels less a lie than before.  if she feels no pain, the sight of his face can be sweet and sweet alone, without the clawing sensation in the front of her head that he looks too much like aerys.

she gets headaches more than she used to.  the sorts of headaches that lay her low, that send her back to her room and closed curtains and darkness where she listens to the sound of her breathing, balances breathing deeply with the knowledge that the deeper she breathes the harder her heart will pump and the more her head will ache.  she lies there in bed, willing her head not to hurt the way she doesn’t let her heart hurt anymore, but it does not work.  

she pleads with it as she pleaded with her father, but the pain does not abate.  she smiles at it as she smiles at rhaegar but it will not be placated.  she weeps as though she is a little girl again, as watching all her friends be more interested in aerys, crown prince that he was, than her.  perhaps she is going mad like aerys.  perhaps it is pain in his head that makes him behave as he does.

when she wakes again, it’s gone.  she drinks a glass of water and it is cool in her mouth.  she goes to her mirror and stares into it, looks at the dark circles under her eyes, and the worry-lines on her forehead.  she reaches for her makeup brush.

they are signs of feeling, and she must erase them.


	26. Jeyne Westerling

> Follow up of sorts to [this](http://valiantnedspreciouslittlegirl.tumblr.com/post/147814098438/castleintheskye-replied-to-your-post-what-if)

They call them the Beauty and the Beast.  Jeyne finds it unfitting but what singers put to song can rarely be undone, and they like the poetry of it.  Jeyne’s hardly pretty enough to be a true beauty.  She’s not ugly, not even a little.  But beauties are like Sansa, whose looks seem to suck the air out of the room, over whom men fawn and whose words falter when she turns her sad blue eyes to them.  

But Robb is a beast.  That is hard to deny.  

Westerling and Wolf she’d have preferred.  Robb’s men do not call her Jeyne Stark as they once called Lady Catelyn a Stark.  She is still Jeyne Westerling to them, the bride who should not have been, for all it was her hand that guided them back north, and who aided Robb in reclaiming Winterfell.  Robb’s no longer the  _young_  wolf.  Just the wolf.  Robb the Wolf, and who can blame them.

Beauty and the Beast.  It sounds more glorious than it is.  Or more gruesome.  She cannot tell.

Robb is gentle with her.  If he growls and barks when enraged, it is never with her.  He licks her cheek instead of kissing it, and his hands against her skin are warm and loving and when she presses her head against his chest, she smells him along with the wolf.

Men are crude, for all the singers sing of beauty and beasts.  She knows they whisper, wondering if he beds her, if she weeps at it–her handsome king turned to a monster between her legs.  Jeyne never tells them.  Robb certainly never can.  She sees no such curiosity in the eyes of Robb’s sisters and brothers and that’s what truly matters.  So long as they are as one united behind Robb, she need not fear that the men still call her Westerling.

Robb is a good king.  She teaches him some hand gestures that she alone can read, and others that can be more widely understood.  

He can smell a lie, too, as Grey Wind could.

It’s not what she’d planned, nor what her mother had planned for her.  But life, Jeyne learned one night by candlelight is not easily planned or tamed.

It’s like a wolf that way, and if Jeyne’s learned anything, it’s that you can’t control a wolf, but you can hope to run with it.


	27. Gendry

“arya!”

the problem has always been that she’s quick.  she’s quick, faster than gendry and he’s got legs the length of her whole body basically.  she’s quick with her heart, quick with her mind, quick with her reflexes–and fast to run though the gods only knew why she was running.  

 _it’s not safe out there!_ is all gendry can think.  not that staying with the brotherhood is safe, but there’s safety in numbers.  he thought she’d known that.  her bleeding sigil is the direwolf and wolves travel in packs.

but she’s running, and he’s running after her, shouting for her through the night.

“quiet, boy!” harwin barks after him.  he’s on horseback.  “do you want us to be found?”  gendry should have gone for a horse.  then he’d not be so out of breath.  how is he so out of breath?  he’s not run far at all.

“found by who?” he snaps.  “no one could hear me over the–” thunder rumbles overhead cutting him off.

“there’s plenty in these woods and shouts echo.  we’ll find her.” he kicks his horse forward into the night and gendry watches him go for a moment, breathing hard, hating that he knows already.   _you won’t._

she’s a tiny thing–scrawny and small.  and what…twelve? thirteen?  he always got the impression she lied about her age, anyway, and there’s no way she was actually younger than hot pie.  kids grow at different rates.  gendry grew younger than most boys he’d grown.  maybe arya grew later.  

his feet are moving and he finds himself going in a different direction from harwin.  he scans the darkness.  he wants to believe this is the direction she went in, but it’s dark and rainy and there’s no way to know.  maybe she didnt go far after all.  maybe she didn’t run  _away_  just out.  but that doesn’t seem right.  she’d not do that.  

she’s gone.  she ran for gone.  and left him behind too.

that’s when he sees it and he crouches down to examine it.  lightning flashes in the west somewhere and illuminates the ground for just a moment.  there are footprints in the mud, smaller than his own, and hoofprints as well coming from behind and then the footprints are deeper and then they stop.

 _pulled onto a horse,_ is all he can think.   _harwin?_  but harwin went the other way.

“arya!” he calls again.  then, louder, cupping his hands around his mouth to make his voice louder, “arya!”

but there’s nothing.  she’d come if she heard him shouting like that wouldn’t she?  wouldn’t she?  she would, wouldn’t she?  his heart is pounding as he calls again and he hears harwin through the trees.

“damn it, boy!”

and he feels like a boy, not a man, not a knight.  he can’t think of what to say so he just points.

“what’s that?” harwin asks, and he dismounts and lightning flashes again, a good long blast of it.   _lightning for the lightning lord._

_does it know he’s failed?_

“who’d know to grab her?” harwin breathes.  “there’s no one in these woods but us, and no one knows who she is unless…”

gendry hates that unless.  hates it, because he knows exactly why harwin’s face has fallen in horror about the little girl he’d known and what might have happened to her.

 _he’s a murderer,_ gendry thinks desperately.   _lord of light, he killed her friend the butcher’s boy.  what will he do to her?_

the gods had declared him innocent, but arya had refused to believe that, and gendry believed in arya before he believed in any gods, and she’d fallen into the hands of the lord of the seven hells and gods only knew what he’d do with her.


	28. Mya Stone

The mountain is her father, and he sent her mules to guide her. That’s what she tells everyone. It’s easier than the other.  Besides, they all already know the other.

Her mother hates both of her fathers. She hates the mountain because she worries Mya will fall and be found crushed among the rocky base weeks later. And she hates Robert because he left Mya behind.

“I knew better than to hope he’d take me with him,” Mya had overheard her telling old Sal the goatkeeper. Mya had been smaller then, hadn’t sprouted tits and loomed tall over all the other girls because her fathers were both taller than anyone else. “But the girl? He loved that girl, and she loved him and Ned–Lord Stark brought his bastard home with him. I suppose a king is too high up for that, but it crushed the girl.”  Among the rocks.

Mya keeps to herself mostly, except for Randa who had taken a shine to her when they’d been girls together.  Her father had thought that his girl playing with a king’s bastard was a good thing before he had realized the king gave two shits about his firstborn and tried to end the connection. Randa wouldn’t have it though, and Randa always got what she wanted.  It was Mya who gave her the name Randa. It was confusing. Myranda and Mya, and Randa had a long enough name to cut it short.

“You could come into my household and be my handmaiden,” Randa had said before she’d been wed.  “It would be nice to see you when you don’t smell all stinky from the mules.”

But Mya had shaken her head.

When she’d been a girl, her father had thrown her into the air and she’d giggled.   He’d kissed her nose and her cheeks, and she’d begged him  _again! again!_  to throw her.  So long as she lived, she’d love that feeling of fast air all around her, and that was something her father couldn’t take away from her.  Only winter and being Myranda’s handmaid.  The mules even stunk less badly on the mountainside.

Everything stunk less on the mountainside.  And when the wind whipped through her hair and she closed her eyes, for a moment Mya could smile and pretend she was falling into her father’s arms again.


	29. payne not pain (Podrick)

when pod was a child, too young to know how to read, he remembered being confused.  (perhaps that’s his natural state–confused.  it would explain some things.)  house pain–that sounded like the sort of house a villain would come from.  house pain, because they cause pain.  house pain, reliable source of death. 

he was confused because by rights, then, their house’s sigil should be a bleeding skull, a decapitated head, or something equally fearsome.  but purple and white cheques with gold coins seemed like it should belong to a coinkeeper, or even a wealthy house, and house pain was neither.  and why was it that it seemed like none of the members of house pain were half-so-fearsome as their names implied?  or at least, none of the ones that podrick had met.

it was only when he learned to read that he came to understand that his house wasn’t house pain at all.  it was house payne, and that made pod breathe more easily because he didn’t want to be a pain.  being a payne was practically boring, and boring was fitting for podrick.

pod never wanted to be a pain.  not truly.  he’d dreamed of knighthood ever so briefly, but had realized that to be a knight you needed to be knighted, and his lady wasn’t a knight.  perhaps if he’d stayed serving the lannisters it would have happened, if only out of boredom, but there wasn’t a way that he’d be knighted by a woman.  that was fine, though.  she didn’t treat him like he was a pain and he liked that.  even taught him to fight as well, better than anyone else had done.  that was something good.

he thinks if ever he’d serve a knight, though, he wouldn’t be as good a knight as brienne.  that’s why he sometimes calls her ser–she should be a knight.  she’s more like what a knight should be than anyone else he’s ever met.  she doesn’t want to cause pain, or hurt, she wants to protect.  that’s what knights should be.  they should be honorable, and good, and right, even if they have boring stumbletongued squires.

they should _care_.  and brienne cares. and pod cares too.  _if i ever earn my spurs, it’ll be because of her._ it’s wrong that that’s how it should be, but it’s the right kind of wrong.  the same kind of wrong that means he’s podrick payne, not podrick pain. 


	30. not too tall for me (Tanselle)

it’s her rhoynish blood–that’s what her mother tells her.  it’s said that princess nymeria was taller than any man she met as well.  it had been small comfort to tanselle when she’d been a girl, but as a woman, tanselle finds that it’s a good thing now that she’s grown.  

she’s not a beauty like her sister meria.  meria is shorter than both tanselle and their mother–her daynish blood, she complains frequently.  she didn’t like it when they argued and tanselle would loom over her, for it’s hard to look down your nose at little sister while your head is tilted up.  but that’s not to think about now.

 _“go.  get your sister out of your head for a little while,”_ her mother had told her one hot day, the sun baking her skin.  

 _“where will i go?”_  tanselle had asked, and her mother had shrugged.

_“yours is the blood of the rhoynish princess who made her own path through the world.  i’m sure you’ll figure it out.”_

and so north she’d gone–farther north than her mother ever had, and farther north than meria was likely to go, since she doubted that meria would ever leave dorne.  meria would sit the seat, would wear the shield, would hold the spear.  and tanselle…

tanselle would become a puppeteer.  

tanselle had always loved stories, ever since she was a little girl.  she loved her mother’s stories of the rivers, her father’s stories of the mountains, her grandmother’s stories of the blood of the dragon.  she loved feeling her heart race and her eyes go wide, and for a moment she wasn’t tanselle who was taller than her mother’s heir–she was princess nymeria, she was visenya the dragon queen, she was the falling star bringing dawn to the earth.  

she’d never wanted to be a princess–not because she wasn’t grateful of it, but because she wasn’t any good at it.  meria had a mind for numbers, how much was harvested, what gold could buy, the number of men armored and prepared for battle.  tanselle liked to draw.  tanselle liked to use her hands.  tanselle liked to make stories and colors, to fill the world with happiness lest people forget what it was for life, she’d learned on the road around the kingdoms, was a sad lot for those not born in castles.

and everywhere she went–“gods but she’s tall.” it put a smile on her face now.  they’d remember her stories now, remember because she stands taller than a princess, eyes shining brighter than a star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. I've been bad at replying to the comments this time around but I appreciate them more than I can express <3


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